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‘Batman’ cartoonist Frank Miller dropped from comic convention over accusation of ‘anti-Muslim hate’

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Frank Miller himself is not defending “Holy Terror,” so I’m certainly not going to defend it on his behalf, and I don’t endorse torture or killing of innocent people, as his hero seems to in the illustration. But that is not what the controversy is about here. It’s over the claim that “Holy Terror” is “anti-Muslim.” I myself am frequently accused of being anti-Muslim, but the claim is false, baseless, and defamatory. It is no more anti-Muslim to oppose jihad violence than it was anti-German to oppose Nazism. It is worth nothing that “Holy Terror” is described below as “a graphic novel in which an original character known as The Fixer sets out to battle Al-Qaeda.” Meanwhile, “many believed the story depicted the religion of Islam, rather than the specific terrorist group of Al-Qaeda, as the book’s villain,” but no evidence is offered to substantiate that claim. Nor does Miller state this in his disavowal of his work. Maybe it’s true. I don’t know; I’ve never read “Holy Terror.” However, it is also true that it is routine for Islamic supremacist groups in the West to claim that opposition to jihad violence and Sharia oppression of women is opposition to Islam itself. They also routinely conflate criticism of Islam with hatred of Muslims, and numerous people fall for this, although they have no trouble whatsoever seeing the distinction between criticism of Christianity and hatred of Christians. If Frank Miller had written a comic book about fighting against Christian “right-wing extremists,” and some people accused him of attacking Christianity itself, would this convention had dropped him? Of course not. It would be celebrating him as a hero.

Frank Miller Removed From Thought Bubble Comic Convention Guest List After Being Accused Of Propagating ‘Abhorrent Anti-Muslim Hate

by Spencer Baculi, The Mix, July 29, 2021 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

Legendary comic book industry veteran Frank Miller, whose bibliography includes Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Daredevil, and 300, has been removed from the guest list for the upcoming Though Bubble UK Comic Convention after a number of attendees threatened to boycott the event based on their belief that the creator “is responsible for propagation of abhorrent anti-Muslim hate”.

Miller was first announced as a guest for the North Yorkshire, England-based comic convention on June 2nd, with his name being emphasized to the same degree as fellow special guests Joëlle Jones (Wonder Girl) and Christian Ward (New Mutants) on a promotional poster for the event released that same day.

Though Miller’s initial invitation announcement seemed to come and go without any incident, on July 27th, award-winning cartoonist and small press publisher ShortBox founder Zainab Akhtar revealed that they would “no longer be attending Thought Bubble festival this November” in protest of Miller’s attendance.

In a statement announcing her protest of the convention, Akhtar asserted, “As a proud Muslim woman, I cannot in good conscience attend a festival that deems it appropriate to invite and platform Frank Miller, a person who is responsible for the propagation of abhorrent anti-Muslim hate, particularly via his work.”

“Anti-Muslim bigotry is repugnant and condemnable yet has become so deeply rooted, so widely accepted in society that it is not even given a cursory consideration, as evidenced once again in this situation,” Akhtar continued. “I cannot comprehend how time and time again, festivals and communities within comics espouse values regarding inclusivity, diversity, ‘comics being for everyone’, zero tolerance on hate, but all that lip-service evaporates when they are asked to enact those same values.”

In a follow-up tweet, Akhtar stated that though she had “first contacted Thought Bubble about this privately, 8 weeks ago” and had been “assured action would be taken”, Miller’s continued invitation made her feel as if “it’s been communicated to me that I am the acceptable loss: repercussions to my career/income over repercussions to theirs.”

Though Akhtar does not cite any specific instances of anti-Muslim bigotry from Miller, it is assumed that she is referring to his creation of Holy Terror, a graphic novel in which an original character known as The Fixer sets out to battle Al-Qaeda.

Originally developed for DC as a Batman story, Holy Terror would release to widespread criticism, as many believed the story depicted the religion of Islam, rather than the specific terrorist group of Al-Qaeda, as the book’s villain.

However, while Miller stood by his work upon its publication in 2006, he has since changed his opinion of the self-admitted “propaganda” story.

“When I look at Holy Terror, which I really don’t do all that often, I can really feel the anger ripple out of the pages. There are places where it is bloodthirsty beyond belief,” Miller told The Guardian’s Sam Thielman in 2018. “I don’t want to go back and start erasing books I did,” he replies. “I don’t want to wipe out chapters of my own biography. But I’m not capable of that book again.”

As Akhtar’s tweet soon sparked calls to boycott the entire convention amongst her supporters, Though Bubble ultimately announced on July 28th that “Frank Miller will not be attending Thought Bubble.”

“Over the last fourteen years Thought Bubble has grown into an amazing community of comic creators and fans who we love, trust and respect. We have let you down, and in our commitment to maintaining Thought Bubble as a safe space for all, we have fallen short,” read the convention organizer’s statement. “We exist to share the art form and its worlds with people. If any individual, group or community feels uncomfortable or excluded from our show then we’ve failed.”

“We know that many of you are disappointed in us, and have been expecting a comment on this before now,” they continued. “We are sorry for our silence while we’ve been trying to fix this. Frank Miller will not be attending Thought Bubble.”

Continuing their statement, the organizers further affirmed that they were “deeply sorry, particularly to those who we should be standing up for the most,” and hoped “that you can give us the opportunity to make this better and we thank you for holding us accountable.”

“We know there is still more to discuss and we will be replying to those who have been in touch, we hope you can bear with us while we do this,” the statement concluded. “We won’t let you down again.”…

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Islamophobia and the Threat to Free Speech

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My latest book, Islamophobia and the Threat to Free Speech, is available now from Center for Security Policy Press.

CLICK HERE TO ORDER ISLAMOPHBIA AND THE THREAT TO FREE SPEECH

It shows how the demonization of foes of jihad violence and Sharia oppression was a dry run for the Left’s attempt now to silence and criminalize all opposition to its agenda.

“Free speech, the cornerstone of our freedom, hangs by a thread. This book is an essential read to understand how we reached this point, and the key role ‘Islamophobia’ played in normalizing the assault on our most basic right to free expression. May it serve as a wake up call for us to exercise this right, and prevent Trojan Horse blasphemy laws of all types from superseding our freedoms before it is too late.” — Noor bin Ladin, writer and advocate dedicated to defending freedom and those threatened by the adherents of oppressive ideologies

“Robert Spencer provides a chilling account of the ongoing campaign against free speech. He reveals a sinister timeline of decades of deliberately dismantling the most important right we have. It requires much courage to disseminate that truth. As restrictions continue to gain ground in the free world, this book should inspire all to protect freedom of speech and to stand up to the policy of criminalizing words in order to silence us. And make it unequivocally clear that we will never be silenced.” — Geert Wilders

“The most important war that people face today is the global war to limit, and ultimately destroy, the freedom of speech, the indispensable foundation of any free society,” begins best-selling author Robert Spencer, noting the successful “cancellation” of the elected president of the United States by big tech social media companies.

How did we get to this point where presidents, college professors, business leaders, and of course regular citizens face silencing (and worse) at the hands of political zealots?

In Islamophobia and The Threat to Free Speech, Spencer argues that America, and the larger Western world was primed and prepared to surrender its free speech in a campaign that goes back more than three decades,

The unprecedented and disquieting acceptance by so many on the Left of the need to force their foes into silence and deny them access to the primary means of communication today did not spring up out of nowhere in 2020. In fact, the groundwork for it had been laid for it, and the pattern set, years before, in the treatment of opponents of jihad violence and Sharia oppression of women and others. Long before “cancel culture” became a common phrase, the Left and the establishment media canceled foes of jihad terror, defaming, demonizing, marginalizing, and deplatforming them without any rational consideration of the points they made.

Spencer takes the history of the war on free speech back to the 1989 death fatwa pronounced upon author Salman Rushdie by the Ayatollah Khomeini, and then takes us through how a once robust western tradition was steadily undermined by international pressure, jihadist violence, and U.S government and corporate influence. He traces the rise of the “new brownshirts” on college campuses who have used techniques of slander, disruption and threats to turn bastions of free expression into indoctrination centers.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Twitter Bans Three More Dissenters

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The social media platform has no problem boasting about interfering in elections for the Left—but a big problem with people objecting that it was done.

They’re going to silence us all, eventually, if they can. On Saturday, the sanctimonious and hypocritical censors of Twitter came for Gateway Pundit’s Jim Hoft, radio host Wayne Allyn Root, and freedom activist Pamela Geller. Their crime? It appears to have been the heinous act of skepticism toward the official line, specifically, their refusal to accept at face value the official line about the 2020 election.

Root said:

“I am in shock. It appears to be a permanent ban. Although I don’t know. Twitter never warned me. . . . And never sent any communication saying I’ve been suspended or banned. I simply tried to tweet yesterday afternoon and could not. But unlike a previous suspension . . . My followers suddenly said 0.”

What Twitter wrote to Geller made clear what was going on:

Your account, PamelaGeller has been suspended for violating the Twitter rules.

Specifically, for:

Violating our rules about election integrity. You may not use Twitter’s services for the purpose of manipulating or interfering in elections. This includes posting or sharing content that may suppress voter turnout or mislead people about when, or how to vote.

Note that if you attempt to evade a permanent suspension by creating new accounts, we will suspend your new accounts. If you wish to appeal this suspension, please contact our support team.

Thanks,

Twitter

This is absurd from start to finish. Neither Pamela Geller nor Root nor Hoft did anything to “suppress voter turnout or mislead people about when, or how to vote.” Twitter apparently hasn’t even bothered to update its ban notice since before November 3. Nor did they do anything along the lines of “manipulating or interfering in elections.”

Still, there is no doubt that if Geller did take Twitter up on its magnanimous grant to her of a chance to appeal, the appeal would be denied. Twitter’s nameless, faceless wonks are judge, jury, and executioner, and no one can question their sagacity or righteousness of their decisions.

What Geller, Root, and Hoft did, of course, was simply report and highlight the many irregularities and unanswered questions surrounding the 2020 presidential election. Twitter, along with the other social media giants and the establishment media outlets, are labeling all questioning of the election as “lies” and are busy banning any suggestion that there was anything amiss about the election at all, without even bothering to explain all the issues. This is the way a guilty person who is trying to cover up his misdeeds acts, not the way a victor behaves when he knows he has won fair and square and is happy to set the record straight.

Meanwhile, these new bans came just two days after Time published an article titled, “The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election.” In it, Time’s Molly Ball boasted of

a well-funded cabal of powerful people, ranging across industries and ideologies, working together behind the scenes to influence perceptions, change rules and laws, steer media coverage and control the flow of information. They were not rigging the election; they were fortifying it.

Not rigging the election, but fortifying it. Right. And how exactly does one “fortify” an election? From the looks of Ball’s article, by rigging it.

Ball presents abundant indications of manipulation and chicanery in a fulsome self-congratulatory tone that works assiduously to turn reality on its head. A photo of Detroit campaign workers covering the windows so that no one could see what they were doing as they counted the votes—not exactly a hallmark of a free and fair election—is spun with the caption: “Trump supporters seek to disrupt the vote count at Detroit’s TCF Center on Nov. 4.”

Ian Bassin, cofounder of Protect Democracy, is quoted boasting that “the system didn’t work magically. Democracy is not self-executing.” It has to be executed by someone else, and it looks as if Bassin and others like him were only too happy to serve as executioners.

Contrary to Bassin’s statement, our “democracy” (which, as you may know or should know, is—or was—actually a republic), is set up to be “self-executing,” that is, the process should not be more complicated than each candidate making his case before the voters, and the voters freely voting. Ball details how corporate interests silenced opposing views and manipulated laws to ensure their desired result, all while writing darkly about Trump and his “henchmen” attempting to steal the election and destroy our “democracy.”

Time and Molly Ball may not have intended it, but now the cat is out of the bag. So the next step of the political and media elites is to silence those who keep pointing out the abundant signs of voter fraud, claim that they’re “lying,” and that they have to be muzzled for the public good.

Hence the banning of Wayne Allyn Root, Jim Hoft, and Pamela Geller. But as of this writing, Molly Ball and Time still have their Twitter accounts. See, there is “manipulating or interfering in elections” and there is “manipulating or interfering in elections.” Twitter is fine with boasting about doing it for the Left. Twitter is not fine with people who oppose it pointing out that it was done.

It’s all reminiscent of an older charge that has been leveled against Pamela Geller: that of being an “Islamophobe.” When she would quote bloodthirsty Islamic jihadis justifying their actions by quoting the Koran, she—not the jihadis—was called an “Islamophobe.” Her words—not those of the Koran—were dismissed as “hate speech.”

It has all been a shell game from start to finish, and the game isn’t over. The Left has arrogated to itself the right to judge what can and cannot be said in the public square. The Hoft, Root, and Geller Twitter accounts are not the first casualties of their fascist suppression of dissent, and they won’t be the last. Freedom of speech? Pah! That is so 20th century. Don’t you want to join Molly Ball and Time in the brave new world, in which one saves democracy by destroying it? You may not ultimately have any choice, comrade.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Biden Transition Official Believes the First Amendment Has a ‘Design Flaw’ — His Remedy Is to Curb Free Speech

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Richard Stengel, according to the New York Post, “is the Biden transition ‘Team Lead’ for the US Agency for Global Media, the U.S. government media empire that includes Voice of America, the Middle East Broadcasting Networks and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.” He is also a menace to our constitutional protections and to free society in general. If he is any indication of what is coming, we’re in for a rough four years, or longer.
Stengel wrote last year in a Washington Post op-ed that the freedom of speech must be restricted, for “all speech is not equal. And where truth cannot drive out lies, we must add new guardrails. I’m all for protecting ‘thought that we hate,’ but not speech that incites hate.”
What kind of speech “incites hate”? As far as Stengel is concerned, the answer is any speech that Muslims find offensive. He wrote: “Even the most sophisticated Arab diplomats that I dealt with did not understand why the First Amendment allows someone to burn a Koran. Why, they asked me, would you ever want to protect that?”
Well, maybe because a law forbidding criticism (including mockery) of any group establishes that group as a protected class that cannot be questioned, and that in turn would allow this group to do whatever it wanted without fear of any opposition even being allowed to articulate its case. The freedom of speech is, in sum, our foremost protection against tyranny. Without it, a tyrant can work his will without any fear of his opponents uttering even one cross word.
But instead of explaining and defending the freedom of speech, Stengel agreed with his “sophisticated Arab diplomats,” answering their query about Qur’an-burning with this: “It’s a fair question. Yes, the First Amendment protects the ‘thought that we hate,’ but it should not protect hateful speech that can cause violence by one group against another. In an age when everyone has a megaphone, that seems like a design flaw.”
Many other nations are fixing that “design flaw,” according to Stengel, and so the U.S. should also: “Since World War II, many nations have passed laws to curb the incitement of racial and religious hatred. These laws started out as protections against the kinds of anti-Semitic bigotry that gave rise to the Holocaust. We call them hate speech laws, but there’s no agreed-upon definition of what hate speech actually is. In general, hate speech is speech that attacks and insults people on the basis of race, religion, ethnic origin and sexual orientation.”
The destruction of the freedom of speech is an idea whose time has come, says Stengel. “I think it’s time to consider these statutes. The modern standard of dangerous speech comes from Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969) and holds that speech that directly incites ‘imminent lawless action’ or is likely to do so can be restricted. Domestic terrorists such as Dylann Roof and Omar Mateen and the El Paso shooter were consumers of hate speech. Speech doesn’t pull the trigger, but does anyone seriously doubt that such hateful speech creates a climate where such acts are more likely?”
Yes. I’m not in favor of the burning of any book, and I believe that people ought to read and understand the Qur’an rather than burn it. However, note that Stengel is calling for legal “guardrails” against “speech that incites hate.” If someone burns a Bible, no one cares. If someone burns a Qur’an, there are riots and death threats. So for Stengel, burning a Bible would not be “speech that incites hate,” but burning a Qur’an would be. Saying that “speech that incites hate” must be criminalized is tantamount to calling for the heckler’s veto to be enshrined in law.
Stengel’s statement that “the First Amendment protects the ‘thought that we hate,’ but it should not protect hateful speech that can cause violence by one group against another” means that if Muslims riot over burned Qur’ans, we must outlaw burning Qur’ans. That would only signal to Muslims that they can get us to bend to their will by threatening violence, and ensure that we will see many more such threats.
In Richard Stengel’s ideal world, non-Muslims are cowed into silence by Muslims who threaten to kill them if they get out of line, and by non-Muslim officials who react to the threats by giving the Muslims what they want.
Note also that Leftist and Islamic groups in the U.S. have for years insisted, with no pushback from any mainstream politician or media figure, that essentially any and all criticism of Islam, including analysis of how Islamic jihadis use the texts and teachings of Islam to justify violence and make recruits among peaceful Muslims, is “hate speech” and “speech that incites hate.” Thus Richard Stengel will silence that as well, and the global jihad will be able to advance unopposed and unimpeded.
In a year or two I might tell you “I warned you this was coming,” but by then I probably won’t be able to. 
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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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